Hessians

The "Hessians" were German mercenary soldiers hired by Great Britain first in the American Revolutionary War after 1775. They were named after the princely state of Hesse-Kassel, which supplied most of the Hessian troops, but many came from Hesse-Hanau, Hesse-Homburg, Ansbach-Bayreuth, and Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel as well.

History
Hessians were disciplined mercenaries who were hired from many German princely states, as the Princes traded soldiers for money. Under the command of experienced German officers, many of whom had fought in the Seven Years War, the Hessians were nominally controlled by Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War. The first Hessians arrived in the Thirteen Colonies around 1770, and 30,000 of them arrived in the colonies in 1776 during the war. First fighting in the victory at the Battle of Long Island, they distinguished themselves at the battles of Forts Lee and Washington, and also the Battle of Trenton, where they were decisively defeated due to their commander Johann Rall's drunkeness. In 1777 they were again defeated at the Battle of Red Bank in Gloucester County, New Jersey.

Most of the troops were stationed in the northern theater, and after the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, most of them were stationed in New York (although some fought in the Yorktown Campaign in 1781). In 1783, the last of them left the Thirteen Colonies from New York and headed back to Germany. More Hessians would be used in the United Irishmen Rebellion of 1798 by the Britsh, and some served in the King's German Legion during the Peninsular War of 1808-1814.